Blaq

sorry, i meant shadow mastery the +2/4/6/8/10% dmg from shadow spells

 

Iluminati

I think you meant malediction perhaps? Eitherway, it's definitely not worth it for the 210 hp. It MAY be worth it for the buff to imp Firebolt...pets are not affected by meteor slash so your imp could do quite a bit of damage. I have no idea if that is worth it for dps, probably not.

 

Kegsta

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

something like this is what i got our affliction lock to spec, the imp can fire firebolts the entire fight if placed with the melle, so imp imp is worth it I think. UA isn't because we already have enough debuff slot problems, the lock doesn't use siphon life either.
tank group is

Warrior
Druid
Resto Sham
Afflic Lock
Hunter

 

Iluminati

As I just said, pets are not affected by meteor slash, so he doesn't even have to move it.

 

armitageiii

Alright. I've read through every page of this. For discussion etc.

There was a diagram posted by someone of the Burns and Stomp Rotations. To my knowledge there was an original one posted and then a fixed one. I can't find it anyone - Could someone please link it if they still have it?

 

Iluminati

http://elitistjerks.com/attachments/...ustanking2.gif

it was back on page 21.

 

Inaiwae

This one is not correct. It has stomps every 30 seconds but in real they are on slightly longer timer, the last one is like 10 seconds later than shown on the picture (with first one at 30 seconds).

 

Blacksen

Hey everyone. I just made up my own Brutallus strategy guide based off conversations with other guilds. My guild will be attempting Brutallus this Monday, and we were wondering if anyone could give feedback, especially on the diagram of positioning and helping keep tanks up.

Thanks!:



Brutallus has three notable abilities:

- 1) Burn - A fire based damage over time attack. At any point during the duration of the debuff, if the afflicted player moves within 2-3 yards of another player, they will spread a fresh debuff to the new player. Burn is randomly targeted. Damage starts at negligible amounts and increases every few ticks, culminating with a ~6000 tick at the end. The debuff lasts 60 seconds, can be resisted, and is removed by Cloak of Shadows, Iceblock, and Divine Shield.

What's critical to understand about Burn is that it will NOT kill you at the start. Unlike on Illidan with Parasitic Shadowfiends, there isn't a huge rush to "get to the right place." It's significantly more important that you get there WITHOUT SPREADING THE BURN.



- 2) Meteor Slash - Meteor Slash deals 20000 fire damage split between everyone in a 30 yard radius in front of Brutallus (180 degrees). In addition to the damage, each player hit receives a 30 second debuff that increases all fire damage taken by 75%. The debuff stacks indefinitely. Brutallus uses Meteor Slash approximately every 10 seconds.

What's critical to understand about Meteor Slash is that it + Burn = death. When you get burned, you need to avoid getting hit by Meteor Slash IN THE SECOND PORTION OF THE BURN. Again, this goes back to the "there's no big hurry" thing. The only way that Meteor Slash will cause you to die is if you have it up while in the last 10 seconds of Burn.

This is also what forces a tank rotation. I'll go into this in more detail later. Big thing to realize here is that it isn't that much damage. In the diagram below, you'll see that a minimum of 8 people are always in front of Brutallus. The last "meteor slash" will hit everyone for 6.3k damage. All three meteor slashes will deal 13125 damage to everyone on a side. This can be will often be less, however, as you usually have 9 people in front of Brutallus on each side. However, what I really want to stress with this is that the damage is actually pretty easy to heal through. You have, more or less, 60 seconds to heal those 8 people for 13125 health. Effectively they need only 218 heals-per-second in order to stay alive. Shadow Priests can handle that pretty damn well.



- 3) Stomp - This is a tank thing. This reduces the armor of Brutallus' primary target by 50% for 10 seconds and also deals 18850-21150 physical damage after mitigation. It will hit a well geared tank for approximately 5000. Note that this attack removes the Burn debuff. It is not avoidable.



On top of all that, Brutallus has a 6 minute enrage timer and has 10 million hp. This requires a sustained raid DPS of 27778. Practically, you need around 29k dps to account for potential spell knockbacks and burn movement. This requires around 1933 DPS per person with 15 DPS. 1812.5 with 16 DPS.









Positioning:


Strategy:
Going to keep this as simple as I possibly can.



The tank rotation:
So, basically there are three groups. Group A and B are with a tank. Group C is the melee DPS.
Groups A and B are going to be getting hit by Meteor Slashes. Meteor Slash gives a debuff that increases the fire damage you take by 75%, and it stacks. It lasts for about 30 seconds. It hits for quite a bit of damage to everyone in the 180 degrees in front of him. So, in order to counter this, we have to setup a tank rotation. Tank A starts out. 3 Meteor Slashes go by, and tank B taunts and starts tanking. The tanks will go on like this for the entire fight. It's important to understand that the tanks cannot move and cannot get burned.

The key thing to understand here is the massive amounts of damage. There is an "instagib" factor in this fight on the tanks. Stomp+3rd Meteor Slash+MH+OH = dead. So, tanks need to be pretty quick about getting the correct rotation down. However, tanks also need to be aware of the heals on them. Before taunting, tanks should CALL OUT that they are taunting in X seconds in order to get a few heals started on them.






Healing Brutallus:
Important thing for healers is that you cannot be playing "catch-up" on the tanks in this fight. You have to be AHEAD of the heals on nearly everyone, and that comes from understanding the fight. Meteor Slash is NOT an urgent thing to heal through. 1-2 Circle of Healings will prevent that group from dying to the 3rd one. Shadow Priests can help heal through it even more. But this fight is interesting in that it requires you to be comfortable with people not having full health.

Again, you can't be playing catch-up on heals. Heals need to be going on the tanks early. Burn targets too.

Healer assignments:
2 healers healing Burn targets. Even then, these healers will be able to spot heal the raid and the tanks. There will be a lot of times where the burn ticks for very low amounts, or the burn got removed by something. These will likely be a resto druid and a resto shaman.

4 healers on the tanks. These will likely be a resto druid, holy paladin, a resto shaman, and a holy priest.

1 healer on raid probably a resto druid, though could be another Holy Priest.

IF A HEALER GETS TARGETED FOR BURN, HEALER ASSIGNMENTS WILL SWITCH.
So, let's say healers B and C are healing burns, and healer A is healing the tank.
Healer A gets targeted for burn.
Healer B is now a main tank healer. Healer A now switches to healing himself and raid through the burn.




Burns:
When you get burned and you can't remove it, your goal needs to be to get to the burn area within 10 seconds. It's absolutely critical that you be there pretty damn quickly. However, the #1 goal is to NOT SPREAD THE BURN. Burn will jump to anyone who comes within 4 yards of you. Basically, anyone who's in range to initiate a trade with you will get hit by the burn. If a Burn spreads, it's basically a wipe. It'll put a huge strain on healers who now have more damage in the meteor slash to deal with, on top of two people taking full burn ticks at the same time.

If you're a melee DPS, just make sure you're spread out enough so that it doesn't spread. Rogues CloS to get rid of it

If you're a healer, be ready to use Nature's Swiftness on the tank while moving over to the burn Spot. Heal yourself and the raid.

If you're a ranged DPS, try running 30 yards away from Brutallus first, then going to the burn spot. If that's not practical, don't worry about it. Just make your way over, careful not to hit anyone.

 

◊ Penguin

First off, it's Slash isn't a perfect 180deg arc infront of him. It's more like 120 or 130. That right there puts a couple of people in your diagram out of position. Most guilds go with some sort of box or square of people around the two tanks. The primary reason for this is for resto shamans to be able to spam chain heal off the tank and have it jump to the group to top off Slash damage. Also, the way you have the raid positioned, it looks like anyone with Burn is going to have to weave between people to get out of Slash range. With a circle/box, it's much much simpler to get away without spreading it.

There's not some hidden "but he tries really hard" variable built into the game. -Slake

I always love the "it doesn't fit my style of play" line. There are only two styles of play; Correct, and Incorrect. The only people that ever use this line are people with the incorrect style of play. -Sebudai

 

Tyrian

Its nice to see the effort you put into that strategy, Blacksen. However there are major flaws in your strategy - mostly with regards to healing setup and positioning that just make the fight unnecessarily harder. This doesnt mean the way you described won't work - it most certainly can - but its by no means the optimal setup.

First of all, I would recommend ditching the 'soak-group positioniong' in your diagram and opt for a 3x3 grid instead, with the tank in the middle. After trying both, the 3x3 grid is much, MUCH, superior. Most importantly, it makes better use of everyones best friend: Chain Heal. Heres what it looks like:

(Quickly made picture, not to scale/angles might be slightly wrong - but you get the idea)



Your healing setup (7 healers) will probably look something like this:

~3 shamans
~1 druid
~2 paladin
~1 Priest.

This is how id recommend you set those 7 healers up:

- 1 Paladin + 1 Druid on burn healing
- 1 Paladin + 1 Priest on MT permenantly, nothing else
- 3 Shaman cast chain heal THROUGH the current MT
- Notice there is no 'raid healer'. The soak-groups get all their healing from the 2nd and 3rd bouncse of Chain heal by your shamans and ShadowPriest VE healing.

No - don't do this.

You can take out two healers from your 'soak-group' rotation and put them behind the MT. These should be the Burn Healing Druid and the MT healing priest. You dont want these players to ever have to do anything, except focus on MT healing / burn healing. Again, the fight is easy - theres no need for healers to have to switch/think much during the fight - put them in a situation where they can simply focus on their job, 100% full time - and nothing else.

Remember, simply because someone is a range DPS or healer doesnt mean you need them to be in front of Brutallus soaking. You only really need 7 soakers (+ the tank = 8 total) to be comfortable. So if you have 17 ranged dps/healers combined , only put 14 of them in soak groups. Put the remaining 3 spare (preferably the healers I mentioned) behind the boss and tell them to focus on nothing but healing.

 

Mezoth

One comment about this:

Having the burn for the last 20 seconds of the debuff can kill you - if you have 3x stacks of slash, and it pushes up to the second to last amounts you are taking 2k ticks/second. Normally this is happening at the same time that somebody else is in the last 10 seconds of burn.

If you get burn, you need to move asap to the burn position, but always without spreading burn. DPS should stop whatever they are doing and MOVE. Worst case if they move right away is they end up taking ~3 2k ticks before the slash wears out - very healable. If they do not move and take 10 seconds of 2k hits, while somebody else is taking 3k hits, they will probably die.

- Druid burn healer for my guild.

 

Blacksen

Thanks a bunch for the quick replies. Getting just what I wanted of a critique of our strat / better understanding of the fight.

In this diagram (posted by Tyrian):

Where are the burn spots?

 

◊ Penguin

With the melee, standing behind them.

There's not some hidden "but he tries really hard" variable built into the game. -Slake

I always love the "it doesn't fit my style of play" line. There are only two styles of play; Correct, and Incorrect. The only people that ever use this line are people with the incorrect style of play. -Sebudai

 

Pitbuller

Put raid marks to left and right melee players. Then everyone see how far to run and they don't run straight to melee when running burn spot.
Ps. Warn shamans to not use earth elemental or you see funniest wipe ever.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Skyhoof

As a resto shaman, I like the set-up with the tank in the center of the square. However, would even the DPS classes at the back end of the square be out of melee range with this set-up? Our warlocks will pull aggro if they get in melee range.

 

Tyrian

Yes - though it might take a few attempts to work out the exact positions. Mages/Warlocks should be out of melee range (but still getting chain heal second bounces from the MT) if its setup correctly.

 

Dominus

We got our first real night of attempts on him last night and ran into the same problem. His hit box is so big, that we had a lot of trouble keeping them at 130% ceiling while still getting chain heal bounces.

Our solution was to move the warlocks further back, and let Imp. VE heal up their slash damage. Slashes 1 and 2 were fully healed up, and slash 3 was a non factor since the other tank taunts afterward, giving a full 30 seconds for VE to top them back off.

Towards our later attempts, we had 2 spriests soaking slash, and we moved one warlock (who wasn't in the boomkin group) behind the melee (his shaman situated at the closest spot of the square to the melee group so he still got totems). It helps immensely that we had one warlock that never, ever had to worry about moving. I might go back and try to tweak this so that the moonkin is setup in such a way that the aura will reach the lock we designate at the back spot.

We were experimenting a lot with positioning, and we just couldn't for the life of us find a way to do this. Do you have any suggestions on how to tweak this? I know it will be based off of our initial positioning, but we just couldn't find a way to keep CH incoming without relying on bounces to other DPS first (who were getting topped off, and then not getting bounced through).

 

◊ Penguin

Have both tanks shuffle back to the limits of his hitbox, and make sure the group adjusts. We have hunters, mages and warlocks able to stand in range of tank chain-jump without being in melee range.

There's not some hidden "but he tries really hard" variable built into the game. -Slake

I always love the "it doesn't fit my style of play" line. There are only two styles of play; Correct, and Incorrect. The only people that ever use this line are people with the incorrect style of play. -Sebudai

 

shanii

On our first night of attemps the positioning of our soaking groups was more like a cone and we had problems with the chainheals, so this time I'd like to try the grids like Tyrian posted it. Just for understanding: With 7 healers the row in front of the mt will be healers, but the two spots next to the mt will be dds and it'll be 110 % range, won't it?

 

Tyrian

Pretty much. If theres 7 healers total (3shaman, 2 pally, 1 priest, 1 druid), i'd put 5 in the soak groups (excluding the MT priest and Burn druid)

- 3 shamans are in the front row of their respective sides
- 1 priest + 1 paladin also in the front row

Be sure to put the people that cant immunity-remove burn closest to the safe spot. Middle row is for people who won't pull agro, eg Shadow Priests and any undergeared Mage/Lock you might be bringing. Back row is for Mage/Locks who can and very likely will pull agro if they stood in melee/110% range.

 

Silverstorm

Regarding casters in melee range, I'm the resident affliction lock for our guild, and I stand in the middle row of the box setup. I'm probably 6-7 yards to the right of the MT, and possibly 1-2 yards behind him. According to Omen, I have a 130% threat ceiling. It isn't much of a concern for me, since I'm affliction. I haven't actually tried meleeing to see if I could hit him, but as long as you can't melee him, you should have the 130% threat ceiling. I'd recommend checking that out while the tanks/healers work their issues out, which will likely take several pulls.

 

Inaiwae

@Blacksen:

Meteor slash: Infinite range, happens exactly every 12 seconds.

Burn & running: I wouldnt say there's no hurry when you get burn in case you are in the Meteor slash zone. What you really want to avoid is getting your meteor slash debuff refreshed after you got burn, because that can complicate healing. So, try to run out without spreading it (primary concern) and without getting another meteor slash (secondary concern).

Stomp: first one comes at 30 seconds, then every 30-31 seconds.

 

Sprout

We have been working on positioning for this fight and we finally got a nice setup working very well last night (tweaked a little from Thursday).

My question is this, what can we expect the dps to increase assuming we did not use consumables? We are short on DPs right now. We are doing things to shore up these issues but I am curious how others saw jumps when they went from raid buffs only too raid buffs + consumables.

also, how much does CoR add to the melee?

 

Ele'